A portion of the core air flow from the compressor section of a gas turbine engine is typically used for air cooling of various components that are exposed to hot combustion gases, such as the turbine blades and turbine shrouds.
Since a portion of the energy created by combustion is utilized to drive the compressor and create compressed air, use of compressed cooling air represents a necessary penalty and energy loss for the engine. Obviously, any minimization of the compressed air portion used for cooling would represent an increase in the efficiency of the engine. While cooled shroud segments are well known in the art, the potential efficiency savings that can be achieved by even small reductions in the amount of secondary cooling air required means that improvement to known devices are consistently sought and highly valued.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a cooled shroud assembly in which spent cooling air from the turbine shroud is reused downstream.
Further objects of the invention will be apparent from review of the disclosure, drawings and description of the invention below.